Lessons learned by an overachiever seeking happiness.

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“Hi Michelle. I’m calling you about the Operations Manager position you interviewed for.”

Finally. The call I was waiting for.

I was very specific about the type of job I wanted after grad school. I wanted to manage operations for a network of charter schools. In the bay area. Of which there were only five.

My top choice employer was on a hiring freeze. One didn’t want someone with their MBA. Two of the five were not growing. And after three months of searching, I was in the final round at the last organization where I had a chance to get the job I wanted. I thought I had done well in the interviews, but when I answered the phone, something was off in the hiring manager’s voice. Continue reading →

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, here’s a re-post on a lesser known (but no less inspirational) story from the civil rights movement.

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I don’t know if it’s because of the inspiring speech from the Great Oakland Public Schools fundraiser tonight, or if it’s my hypersensitivity to the caffeine from the Thai Iced tea I had at lunch, but I can’t sleep right now. So why not spend this time doing one of the things I wanted to do more of this year – write on this blog!

I want to share a story with you about car keys, that Mike Johnston told during his keynote speech at tonight’s fundraiser. For those of you who don’t know of Mike Johnston, he’s someone who has been very active in education reform. He helped found New Leaders for New Schools, is currently a State Senator in Colorado, and wrote a transformation ed reform bill in Colorado, that has sparked similar ed reform bills in 14 other states. He’s also recently been featured as one of Time Magazine’s 40 under 40. Look him up. He’s awesome.Continue reading →

Back when I was in the third or fourth grade, I came up with a list of things I would do the time I turned 30:

-graduate from college
-get a job
-buy a house
-get married (closer to when I turned 30)
-get ready to have kids (by doing the rest of the things on the list)

It recently occurred to me that it’s time to come up with a new vision for my future. I’m 29 now, and I’ve done almost every item on my by-the-time-I’m-30 list. (I’m not married yet, but I am engaged. Love you, Sam!)

This time around, I’ve chosen to approach my future in a different way. Ever since my sister watched The Secret, she had talked about how we should create vision boards for ourselves, visual representations of what we wanted in life. I liked the idea, and we agreed that someday, we’d get together and do just that. For years we put it off, but with the impending completion/expiration of my by-the-time-I’m-30 list, I figured now was a good time to get together over a weekend and get it done. My cousin came over, too, and my living room turned into an arts and crafts and vision and encouragement fest.

I haven’t written a post in a month. It’s been on my to-do list, but it just hasn’t happened. Why? At first, it was because life got busy, in a wonderful way. I spent an inspiring weekend making vision boards with my sister and cousin. I got engaged. I met up with friends from different parts of my life who I hadn’t seen in 2 – 12 years. I started the spring competition season with my dance group.

Life is full of things I enjoy. Writing this blog was another thing I had enjoyed. Why had I put it off for so long?

Because inertia is a powerful thing. For those of you who don’t remember Newton’s first law of motion, it basically says that something at rest will stay at rest and something in motion will stay in motion unless some force acts on it.

Two Saturdays ago I was at the airport, all lined up and ready to board the plane, when the gate agent announced that we couldn’t board just yet because we were waiting on a flight attendant. Oh, and that flight attendant was currently on a different flight that hadn’t landed yet.

As we continued to wait, I could hear people around me start to grumble about the delay. What is taking so long? How late are we going to be? I hope I don’t miss my connection. How will I alert my friend who’s picking meup?

And then they started to grumble about anything and everything. Ugh, there’s a baby on this flight – it better not cry the entire way. My battery is dying; why does my phone suck? I have so much work to do, but instead I’m stuck here waiting in this dumb airport.

I was pretty proud of myself for tuning them out and staying in zen-mode, but two years ago I probably would have been with them, letting travel hiccups create stress.

Let’s be honest. Two years ago, after I graduated without a job, I had days when I freaked out. Last winter, months after my friend also graduated without a job, she freaked out. A few months ago, when my boyfriend realized that his under-employment was not sustainable, he freaked out.

***DISCLAIMER: The following dialogue is a dramatization, and in no way reflects how much whining my boyfriend did in the early stages of his job search.***

“So, what kind of job are you looking for?”

“Arrrrrrrrrgh! I don’t know. Why do you keep asking me that?”

My boyfriend, now employed, told me that getting him to answer that question was the single most helpful thing I did during the months I coached him through his search for a full-time job.

“So, what kind of job are you looking for?”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I just want to find a job.”

Well, babe, it’s kinda hard to find something when you don’t know what you’re looking for. More importantly, it’s especially hard for someone to help you find something when you can’t define what it is you want to find. Continue reading →

Even though I didn’t make any new year’s resolutions (you can read my new year’s post to find out what I did instead), there is at least one bad habit I’d like to break. There’s something I say all the time, without thinking, and for no good reason.

My boyfriend pointed this out to me, a couple months ago. I had the refrigerator door open for about a minute when he asked,

I don’t know if it’s because of the inspiring speech from the Great Oakland Public Schools fundraiser tonight, or if it’s my hypersensitivity to the caffeine from the Thai Iced tea I had at lunch, but I can’t sleep right now. So why not spend this time doing one of the things I wanted to do more of this year – write on this blog!

I want to share a story with you about car keys, that Mike Johnston told during his keynote speech at tonight’s fundraiser. For those of you who don’t know of Mike Johnston, he’s someone who has been very active in education reform. He helped found New Leaders for New Schools, is currently a State Senator in Colorado, and wrote a transformation ed reform bill in Colorado, that has sparked similar ed reform bills in 14 other states. He’s also recently been featured as one of Time Magazine’s 40 under 40. Look him up. He’s awesome.Continue reading →

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Michelle Florendo, Career Transition Coach

Michelle Florendo is the founder of What If You Could, a career coaching practice that inspires Type-A professionals to do what they love and love what they do. She coaches driven professionals through transitions to more meaningful work and leads workshops on "career pivots" around the world. For more information about her services, visit http://whatifyoucould.be